Ap·pa·loo·sa ( ăp'ə-lū'sə )

There are several schools of thought on the origins of the word Appaloosa. I have pulled a couple version together here. The most common is the first version listed, but the second option does give you something else to ponder.

Appaloosa - adaptation of Palouse Horse

While the Nez Perce never called their spotted horses "Appaloosas," the breed’s name comes from either the Palouse River, which flows through the region of eastern Washington and north Idaho where the horses were known to be plentiful or from the Palouse Tribe, whose main village was situated on the Palouse River. White settlers first described the colorful native mounts as "a Palouse horse," which was soon slurred to "Appalousey." The name "Appaloosa" was officially adopted in 1938.

 

Appaloosa - from Choctaw

The first mention of "Opelousa" horses is from an 1849 book on Texas, and there is a source of the name closer to Texas in neighboring Louisiana, the Indian tribe known as Opelousa. Neither of these tribes speaks Choctaw.

Let us rein in speculation about the horse, however, and go fishing for a moment. The earliest record of something like appaloosa noted in the Dictionary of American Regional English is for 1845, and it is for a fish in Alabama: "Right round that was whar I'd ketch the monstrousest, most oudaciousest Appaloosas cat, the week before, that ever come outen the Tallapoosy." This "Appaloosas cat" is a spotted catfish otherwise known as a flathead catfish, Mississippi bullhead, morgan cat, pied cat, and yellow cat, among other names. A century after the first mention, a 1948 newspaper in Oklahoma mentioned "tackle-busting river cats, or Appaluchians."

The fish name appaloosa very likely comes from Choctaw apolusa, meaning "to be daubed" or "spotted." It is tempting to take the Choctaw word as the source for the horse name too, perhaps reinforced by the name of the Louisiana tribe, since the appaloosa horse is also spotted in the back. But Idahoans and Nez Percé might disagree, because the latter are unquestionably the source of the horse, and they were a long way from Louisiana.